However, UK penetration is dwarfed by Brazil – the Google owned social network Orkut has a 70% penetration there, the highest social network penetration of any of the countries in the Nielsen survey.

Brazil is also top in time spent on these sites – 23% of all time spent (1 in 4 minutes), followed closely by the UK with 17% of all time spent online (1 in 6 minutes).

This shows how far social networks have come in terms of personal use – however also points out that despite the seemingly world dominating growth of Facebook, it’s not the total solution if you’re aiming for a global audience.